When old _Lady Polwhele_ asked the _Reverend Dr. Gwyn_ to let his daughter _Delia_ go with her as companion to a very smart house party, I doubt whether the excellent man would have given so ready an assent had he known what was going to come of it. For my own part I suspected we were in for yet another version of _Cinderella_, with _Delia_ snubbed by the smart guests, and eventually united, as like as not, to young _Lord Polwhele_. However, Miss Dorothea Townshend, who has written about all these people in _A Lion, A Mouse and a Motor Car_ (Simpkin), had other and higher views for her heroine. True, the house party was ultra-smart; true also that there was one woman who spoke and behaved cattishly; but it was a refreshing novelty to find that throughout the tale the ugly sisters, so to speak, were hopelessly outnumbered by the fairy godmothers. Later, the visit led to _Delia's_ going as governess to the children of a Russian Princess, and finding herself in circles that might be described as not only fast but furious. Here we were in a fine atmosphere of intrigue, with spies, and Grand Dukes, and explosive golf balls and I don't know what beside. It is all capital fun; and, though I am afraid the political plots left me unconvinced, the thing is told with such ease and _bonhomie_ that it is saved from banality; even when the amazing cat of the house-party turns up as a female bandit and tries to hold _Delia_ and her Princess to ransom. And of course the fact that the period of the tale is that of the earliest motors gives it the quaintest air of antiquity. Somehow, talk of sedan chairs would sound more modern than these thrills of excitement about six cylinders and "smelly petrol." In short, for many reasons Miss Townshend's book provides a far brisker entertainment than its cumbrous title would indicate. * * * * *